


A Fathers Effect

by Nervouslaughter508



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Big Fish AU, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, But also, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Pepper Potts, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange parenting Peter Parker | Supremefamily | Strange Family, just with all of tonys kids, tony isn't really a good dad until peter realizes he always has been
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 06:17:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18867439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nervouslaughter508/pseuds/Nervouslaughter508
Summary: Peter thinks Tony Stark had been an okay father. Just an okay father. One of his biggest flaws was he didn’t think Peter was able to handle being more included in Tony's life. Tony had always just thought Peter was a small china structure. This lead to Peter thinking he wasn’t enough for much of anything.





	1. What He Sees

**Author's Note:**

> based off big fish, i dont own anything (but it fucking owns me ill tell you that)

Tony Stark! Who would have thought! Man of Iron! Genius, billionaire, philanthropist! Although we’ve seen him early in the morning in his boxer shorts, and late at night asleep in front of the television after everything on it has gone off the air, mouth open, blue light like a shroud over his dreaming face, we believe he is somehow divine. He is funny and charming and handsome and he makes money and what could be better than that? He even laughs at death, he laughs at his families tears. I hear him laughing now, as Stephen leaves the room shaking his head.

“Beyond hope,” he says. “Completely and totally incorrigible.”

He’s crying, too, but these are not tears of grief or sadness, those tears have already been shed. These are tears of frustration, of being alive and alone while my father lies in the guest room dying and not dying right. I look at him and with my eyes ask, Should I? And he shrugs his shoulders as if to say, It’s up to you, go in if you’d like, and seems to be on the verge of a kind of laughter herself, if he weren’t already crying, which is a confusing sort of expression for a face to have to bear.

I stand and go to the half-closed door and peer beyond it. My father is sitting up, braced by a load of pillows, still and staring at nothing as though he were on Pause, waiting for someone or something to activate him. Which is what my presence does. When he sees me, he smiles.

“Come in, Peter,” he says.

“Well, you seem to be feeling better,” I say, sitting down in the chair beside his bed, the chair I’ve been sitting in every day for the last few weeks. In my father’s journey to the end of his life, this chair is the place I watch from. This is the chair where the terrible reflection and the bitter memories always find me somehow.

“I am feeling better,” he says, nodding, taking a deep breath as if to prove it. “I think I am.”

But only today, for this moment on this day. There is no turning back now for my father. To get better now would take more than a miracle; it would take a written excuse from Zeus himself, signed in triplicate and sent to every other deity who might lay claim to my father’s withered body and soul.

He is already a little bit dead, I think, if such a thing were possible; the metamorphosis that has occurred would be too much to believe if I hadn’t seen it myself.

At first, small lesions appeared on his arms and legs. They were treated, but to no real effect. Then they appeared to heal on their own eventually — not, however, in a way we might have hoped for or expected. Instead of his soft, naturally tan skin with the long black hairs growing out of it like corn silk, his skin has become hard and shiny — indeed, almost like iron, like metal is wrapping itself around his once flawless figure possessively. Looking at him isn’t hard until you leave the room and see the photo sitting on the fireplace mantel. It was taken six or seven years ago on a beach in California, and when you look at it you can see — a man. He’s not a man in the same way now. He’s something else altogether. Some already lifeless.

“Not good, really,” he says, revising himself. “I wouldn’t say good. But better.” And I know what's going on. What he’s setting up for.

  
“Dad,” I say a couple of times, and when he finally stops I take his thin and brittle hand in my own. “No more stories, okay? No more stupid jokes.”

“They’re stupid?”

“I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“Thank you.”

“Just for a little while,” I say, “let’s talk, okay? Man to man, father to son. No more stories.”

“Stories? You think I tell stories? You wouldn’t believe the stories my mom used to tell me. You think I tell you stories, when I was boy I heard stories. She’d wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me a story. It was awful.”

“But even that’s a story, Dad. I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“You’re not necessarily supposed to believe it,” he says wearily. “You’re just supposed to believe in it. It’s like — a metaphor.”

“I forget,” I say. “What’s a metaphor?”

“Cows and sheep mostly,” he says, wincing a bit as he says it.

“See?” I say. “Even when you’re serious you can’t keep from joking. It’s frustrating, Dad. It keeps me at arm’s length. It’s like — you’re scared of me or something.”

“Scared of you?” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’m dying and I’m supposed to be scared of you? I’ve seen way scarier things then you. Like your father when-”

“Scared of getting close to me.”

He takes this in, my old man, and looks away, into his past.

“Talk to me then Peter. Tell me about your friends, your job, your lover. You are banging someone, right?”

I want to strangle him, but he’s trying for once.

“I am seeing someone.” I admit. Why am I ashamed? Why am I embarrassed? This is my father, albeit everything and its very sad I can’t even talk to him about things like relationships with about feeling abashed.

Tony smiles a bit. “Her name?”

“His name is Wade.”

If Tony is surprised, he doesn’t show it. The bastard has probably known before I’ve known himself. The thought amuses me slightly, like although Tony and I aren’t blood, the one thing I get from him is his taste in men and women.

“Whats he like?”

And I realize this when I say it.

“He’s like you.”

Wade is like Tony a lot. Both men are ambitious, but they use their words to their advantage. Wade just can’t shut up, and Tony never does, even on his deathbed. It’s never occured to me that my dream partner was like- well, a better version of my father. And Wade is my dream partner, and I’ve known it since I saw him in that arcade, trying to juggle skell balls, and failing.

Tony half smiles. “I hope he’s a better man then I am.” 


	2. What He's Heard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mentions of abuse... just saying. somewhat anti steve

Stories go around Tony Stark, like stories usually go around the protagonist. Stories he tells everyone and stories that everyone tells about him.

Stories about his immortality. Tony had always given Peter indications he would live forever. He was made of iron, invincible.

One day he fell off the roof. The yardman had been doing work, adding a protective layer to the roof, and had left his ladder. Tony had driven home, came out and saw the ladder and climbed it. He had wanted to see if he could see the Stark building in the distance, and if the house was sturdy enough.

Peter, 9 at the time, had known what danger was. He had seen cartoons and movies with Wong and Rhodey (don’t tell Stephen or Tony). He asked Tony not to do it, but Tony just winked and climbed up, letting the wink mean anything Peter wanted it to.

After climbing the ladder he stood over by the chimney, turning in circles and staring south, north, west and east, for some sign of a building. He was handsome up here, dressed in a fitting black suit and his shiny shoes. He seemed to finally find the place where he might be most advantageously displayed: at the top of a house three stories high. He walked-strolled- back and forth, carelessly and Harley and Peter were stunned by the act of nonchalance in such a risky circumstance.

Stunned, impressed, it was a sight to behold.

Suddenly he fell and Peter watched as his father fell of his own roof. It happened so fast and so sudden the boys weren’t sure how it happened, maybe he had jumped or flipped or stumbled but all of those seemed so unlikely for Tony Stark, their idol, their icon, their father.

He fell into the shrubbery and Harley rushed to him.

Peter had honestly expected his mythical father to propel himself upright and hen he didn’t, Peter was sure his father was dead. He was so sure he dead he didn’t rush to him, to try to save him. He didn’t even call Stephen, who was inside working.

Peter walked, slowly, to the body. He was completely still, not breathing. On his face was one of the beatific slumber that one associates with death. A pleasant expression on his pleasant face. Peter stared, memorized, while Harley pulled on his arm, whimpering. Harley was not quite fluent in his words and chose to speak through grunts, nods, and pointing.

All of a sudden his father's face moved, and he winked at the boys, laughed and said, “Had you going there, didn’t I?”

 

Another story that goes around about Tony Stark is the story of how his heart was metal. it's more of a joke. Pepper always says that his father doesn't have a real heart because of all the cruel business plans he always makes to his customers and it's mostly a joke and everyone will laugh and sigh like it's like a running gag.

Everyone is on on the joke, even Jarvis. One day he serves Tony oil for breakfast when he was mad at him “Wouldn't want your heart to stop sir he says primly and backed out of the kitchen. A young Harley Is the only one who doesn't understand the joke and is confused when everyone is rolling on the floor laughing.

Tony Stark might have a metal heart. Stephen had accused him of this in his lab late one night when he doesn't show up for Peter's parent-teacher conferences. Peter knows this because he's listening through the vents.

“He's 13! I know how he's doing in his classes” Tony says.

“The fact that he's 13 makes it more important.”

“ He's a smart boy. I'm sure he's doing fine.”

Peter smiles with pride despite the present situation he's found himself in.

Stephen sighs his angry sigh and Peter can hear him stomping up the stairs. He hears Tony kick something and stomp up after him. They fight a lot more after that. Then, Peter stops listening when they kiss and make up (gross).

Peter hates it when his parents fight.

And Tony Stark might have a real heart too. When Peter scores his first touchdown in football, his father's in the crowd with Harley, Nebula, Stephen, May and Pepper, smiling and clapping. Tony looks up to meet his eyes and Tony winks his iconic wink to him and Peter feels like he can run around the entire field in one breath.

And Peter doesn’t know why he devoted himself to his father. Why he still does. But thats just how it is. Before soon Peter will learn that before a man can devote himself to a family or a partner of his own, he must devote himself to his father.

Tony Stark never devoted himself to Howard Stark.

  
More stories that pass around about Tony Stark aren't as funny as his metal heart.

There are stories about Obadiah Stane ripping his real, flesh heart out. Stories about his ex- husband's new boyfriends being responsible for the passing of Howard and Maria Stark. Stories about military manipulation. 

Tony defects all of them. Peter later finds out all of them are wrong, but right in the most twisted, horrible of ways.

A story that didn't need to be twisted around to be a story of terror is the story of Steve Rogers demise.

Peter had been adopted by Steve and Tony when he was three. He still allowed to see his biological Aunt May, but due to age she was unable to raise him, and she believed he could have a better life with Tony. She was always in his life. When Peter was six, Steve hit Tony for the first time, and that action marked four years of torture.

Tony would always plead Peter not to tell anyone. It was the panic in his father's voice that made it so he never did.

“Why papa?”

“Cause I still love him.”

And then things would be ‘okay’. For a while at least. Then it was the same cycle. Hit, cry, plead, ‘okay. Hit, cry, plead, ‘okay’.

Then, Tony didn't love Steve enough to put up with his abuse and anger. He knew something was going on behind his back with James Barnes, and was tired of being used. There were divorce papers, and everything was close to perfect when Tony meets Stephen. 

When Tony met Stephen, everything was 20th century Disney perfect for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you think!


End file.
